Sir Edmund Hillary: The Times obituary

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Resolute climber who made mountaineering history with Sherpa Tenzing in ascending the world’s highest peak in 1953

Of all the achievements that seemed to make the year 1953 such an annus
mirabilis for the United Kingdom — the Coronation of a young Queen Elizabeth
II, the regaining of the Ashes after 20 years and the wresting of the world
airspeed record from the Americans — none, perhaps seized the imagination of
the public so vividly as the ascent of Mount Everest on May 29 of that year
by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

In an era in which exploration, travel, tourism and the internet have so
thoroughly shrunk the world, making Everest, too, comparatively familiar
terrain, it is